Financial Times
May 24, 2011
European leaders are pushing to impose measures that would ensure the Greek government lives up to its promise to deliver €50bn ($70bn) in privatisation proceeds, amid scepticism that Athens can carry out the sell-offs.
The privatisation plan, spelt out in detail for the first time by the Greek government on Monday, has become a central issue in Europe-wide deliberations over how to overhaul Greece’s faltering €110bn bail-out programme.
With political opposition to new loans to Greece growing in several northern eurozone countries and the European Central Bank adamantly against any restructuring of Greek debt, European leaders see the privatisation plan as the best hope of staving off insolvency.
Officials involved in the discussions believe far more than €50bn could be raised in sales of state-owned assets, with estimates ranging from €250bn to €300bn – or almost all of Greece’s outstanding debt.
But several diplomats and officials said repeated failures by Athens to start such sell-offs have convinced them of the need to impose new conditions on the programme, including the possibility of an international agency running the divestments. “The state is not functioning,” said one senior European diplomat.
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